Hey, I tried to reply to your message but nothing turns up in my sent folder, hope you got it.

oh no, I had no problem with the idea of using small people (hell, NASA had fairly strict weight/size limits in the early days).
It was the 'skull'n'daggers' semi-violent rather absurd way the lead character got involved in the program. It was just..... dumb and unnnecessary.

Rocket Girls.... started it but never finished. I had trouble getting past the whole "setting up the premise" of how she gets involved in the program.

You are right on that, the harpy like girl indeed did that.
However I would also add that wasn't the only "semi-rape-like" situation in that game.
The purple haired chick, Touka sometimes midgame had a forceful sexual intercourse with the protagonist (and I even remember, it was even highlighted, it was without any foreplay), albeit a bit later he takes the lead, so I wouldn't really count it as a rape.

Additionally the 2 archers (let's not go into their gender now ) made Oboro or what was his name drunk, and well... you can fill in the rest.

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That whole debate is a bit silly to be honest. I mean if whatever government is going to restrict all this kind of games with whatever tiny connection with any kind of rape -including female on male- (and no the japanese gamedevelopers aren't going to change, and neglect the idea of rape because of westerners), they could even make most (about 20-50% I'd say) of the fantranslated games illegal with that move.

I'm absolutely against that idea. it's so rare when a new Visual novel comes out in english, and the only effect such regulation would achieve is that fantranslation and official translation can mostly work with titles not including any of the already mentioned themes. So many awesome stories we would miss with that...

that's a shame (the streaming of moonphase not working well)...i want to give the series a shot (the dvd version).

as for ef, please tell me the difference, i saw the first season, though i wasn't sure if i wanted to see the second season

haha thanks for the response, appreciate it. And yeah, i don't mind the sadness in my anime, i love it yet hate it at the same time you know? The anime is sad because the characters are often very likable, but then you don't want it to be sad and you want everyone to be happy, but then half of them all die! It's sad, it's great because it's sad, yet it's too sad sometimes haha, but i love watching it. I thought kanon 2006 was great, and tales of memories was pretty good too, i feel terrible for that girl who can't remember things past a certain amount of time.

oh and one more thing, moon phase, is that tsukiyoki or w/e moon phase? like a really old anime? i remember seeing an episode a LONG LONG time ago, i might pick it up if you say it's really good

Heh... for some reason I always assumed he was just taking care of a little girl.

. I think that mostly everyone thought that. Well, let's face it, most people from western countries will grit their teeth about this relationship. But I think we should not judge hastily, and you can see that in this show. I don't think that Takeshi would ever do something bad to Mayuko, even if "maybe", he has romantic feelings for her. He is aware about the limit of this relationship and had accepted it, even if a part of him is obviously sad because of that.

He devoted his life to her. Whatever their current physical appearance, in his eyes, she is still the girl he loved and to who is gave a little (horrible) rabbit. I think it's somewhat the same for Mayuko, he looks like an old man, but in her eyes, he is still and will stay the same.

I don't know how to describe it... I like stuff that can put me in a particular mood. Depressing stuff seems to just be really good at it.

Maybe you just like to feel and share the feeling of pain of those characters because in some ways, it makes you think about life and such, because you are aware that Life can be cruel, for example. Maybe I am wrong, though.

I never really got why people disliked the Kuze/Mizuki plot so much, even though I preferred Yu/Yuuko. I mean, yeah, Kuze is very angsty, but it's full of very interesting imagery (another thing I like about the EF series). I do wonder what he did with all the uniforms, though.

Firstly, the age gap. She is what? 15?, He is what? 27? For most of the people, it's too much (there is even some people who complains about Gundam 00 because two characters have a age gap of "only" 8 years).

Secondly, Kuze's personality. He can be selfish (he wants to always "win" and don't enter a contest that he can't win), perverted and stupid, and can say things to hurt people on purpose (like saying to miyuki that he will rape her. It's not true, it's just to hurt her). Many people hate that. Anyway, behind that wall of bad qualities, I don't think that Kuze is a bad man. Do I think that Miyuki will live happily with him? Imo, Yes.

Thirdly, Miyuki's voice, but nothing can be done about it XD

I'd fault him more on forgetting that "this" Chihiro only knows him from the diary than on not picking up on her feelings. She was acting all cute and romantic towards him for the whole episode - it's not until she reveals that she's going to try and forget about him that it starts to seem like she did it because it was her last chance

Agreed.

And yeah, rewatching the first season is really interesting. Things like Yu answering "maybe I wanted to see if someone like me might be able to succeed" when Renji asks him why he didn't stop him getting close to Chihiro come across in a completely different light.

A thing I didn't understand was: Did yuu and yuuko lived in Japan or Australia? Yuuko's grave is in Australia, so I should assume that they lived there. But in the flashbacks, everything seems to point out that they lived in Japan ?____? I like Yuu BTW. Same as Kuze, he is not perfect and did mistakes, but he is a nice man. I cried to see that he loved Yuuko all this time, and that he will never stop to love her. I am also happy that Yuuko didn't ask to him to forget about her. That's what I call being in love, for real.

My complaint about Chihiro being selfish isn't that she rushed things, it's that she purposely got close to Renji knowing full well that she intended to forget about him immediately after. It's as if she didn't even consider how he'd feel about it.
I sometimes wonder how Renji would deal with it if she lost her memories again. Depressing thought there.

I see, but Renji is a teenager. As you know if you read the family/opinion thread, I am not for letting the kids do mistake, but if they do, they have to live with it. Maybe Chihiro and him did a mistake but they are human (in the anime ) and it can happen.

Well, it will happen, I think. Yuu told him that it happened in the past and will happen again. Renji knows that, but accepted it and will stay by chihiro's side.

I had thought her disappearance had to do with her having to get inside before sunrise. I don't think there's a lot of evidence either way, though.

Ah good point, I didn't think about that I don't think she has forgotten him anyways. I don't really remember that scene in the flashback, but Yorito already seemed interested in her before his (real) death.

I need to review Mayuko's scenes at some point.

Mayuko's story is so sad. That couple (Takeshi and Mayuko) was kind of disturbing because at the start I haven't imagined that he was her first love (I still believe, despite the the visual age difference that takeshi still loved her. But maybe his love became a kind of parental/family-love, rather than Romantic feelings.)

Takeshi is also a very good character in Sola.

That's actually one of the more memorable scenes of the show for me. No wonder I have a reputation for liking depressing stuff.

Me I am not really fond of depressing stuffs. Once in a while, it's nice, but after having watched a sad show, I usually not watch any depressing shows for quite some time (that's why I dropped Clannad).

I keep forgetting English isn't your first language:

I know what it means, I just read it wrongly (it was 5am here ), and I am not born in France, but it's another (boring) story xD

Yeah, considering the revised scene happens less than a full episode after Yuuko's revelation, the audience wouldn't have taken it well. I get the impression it only works in the game because Mizuki's story was covered before Yuuko's in the game

IIRC what I did read about it, in the game, the story begins when Yuuko and Yuu meet in the church (so it's the scene we can see in the last episode of the anime), and they both talk about the people they helped.

Anyway, even if I dislike her voice, I also liked the Mizuki/Kuze storyline. From what I saw, many people dislike it because of those boring scenes when kuze is saying the same kind of sentences over and over again. But the denouement was not bad at all (even if know many people who would be shocked by that type of relationships)

One of my cousins has been bedridden for quite a few years now due to illness. Somehow her husband manages to deal with it despite having a fairly highs stress job (he works as a technician on firefighting aircraft).

Her husband is a nice man then, or rather, someone who really loves his wife. Anyway, I feel sorry about what is happening to them.

I found the implication pretty hard to miss. I actually have to admit I liked the scene quite a bit at the time, but it become a bit creepy when I looked back on it and realized that it was one of the things that Chihiro wanted to do with Renji before trying to forget about him. It makes it seem almost like an act of desperation.

I should rewatch the first season, I don't remember at all . Anyway, doing it as an act of deperation is not really romantic xD. Renji should have realized that, but oh well, they're together in the end, so what happened is not that big of a problem.

(And on a related note - while I'm willing to forgive her for it given the circumstances, I feel that the whole "forget about me" routine Chihiro pulled on Renji was pretty selfish, like she wasn't considering his feelings on the matter at all. She's still a favourite character of mine despite that.)

Don't forget that Chihiro's mind is a bit the same as a child when her memories is resetting. It's hard for me to judge her actions as if she was a person without health problems. The one who should have realized what she was doing and stopped her is Renji <.<

Looking back through a few scenes, she does appear to recognize his name, and the sky obsession would be hard to miss. She starts to act a lot more nervous about it after he mentioned Aono's name in episode 6, though. So if she did know about it, she didn't seem worried prior to that (I'm kind of curious as to why she never asked his sister's name prior to episode 6).

She does seem less trustful of him in the manga, but that seems to be more of manga Matsuri being a tsundere rather than a logical response. (I liked the anime version a lot more than the manga.)

I didn't read the manga ^^. Well, I think she knew who he was, but she tried to avoid him. In the first episode, she vanished before he could ask anything, and she did it on purpose.

Talking about sola brings back good memories to me. I started to listen to the OST/ED again. The song by Ceui is beautiful (the one that is playing when we can see the flashback about Mayuko's past later in the series).

Well, we know she can lose her memories (she does in the one scene), and there's some indications that even those she "remembers" can be kind of shaky, such as what happened the first time she asked Renji to kiss her. Despite all that... I really do think that whatever memory problem she has, it doesn't affect learned "skills". And she seems to recover her mannerisms pretty quickly too after the memory wipe.

I remember that scene. It was just after that she told to Yuu that she was remembering some things, then the next morning she woke up with only her child memory and began to cry. That was a sad scene é_è

About her learned skills, i agree (y)

The fact Yuuko doesn't die saving Mizuki was talked about quite a bit in threads, so I knew about that one - personally, I wasn't big on the change, since it makes Yuuko's death seem pointless.

Uh? I think it was a pretty big change, because that scene felt a bit out of the blue and idiotic in the anime XD (imo of course). But when i learned that in fact she was hit because she saved Miki, it made sense, a whole lot more to me.

Didn't know about Yuuko being pregnant, though. I don't know about the relation to the shrine scene though... given how short they'd been on the run at that point, I don't know how she'd be able to tell it was Yu's (wow, now I'm squicked out. That takes some doing).

Well... I tried to be optimistic and I want to believe it was yuu's baby, and not because of Amamiya...

-Kuze scares Mizuki away by threatening to rape her, not by asking so many strange questions.
-Although I'm not completely sure on this one, I've also heard statements that imply Chihiro is not Renji's first love. More importantly, however, is how the Renji/Chihiro plot is resolved in the game: when he returns her diary pages, he specifically doesn't give her the pages concerning the fact she loves him, preferring to let her make her own decision on that.

I didn't know about those two changes. I am not really surprised about Kuze, but I can understand why they did that change. Even this amamiya rape was maybe a bit too much for the audience -_-

About renji's first love, is that really important that she was not his first love? ^^ What I liked is how Renji was determinated to continue his relationship with her despite all the problems and yuu's warning (it reminds me someone I know who loved his wife, really really loved, despite all her health problems. True Love is beautiful.). Anyway, I don't remember it and I don't remember if that was implied or not, but I read some times ago that renji and chihiro slept together, is it true?

(Also, if you ever notice that the female characters in EF bare some resemblance to those in Sola, it's not just you. They have the same character designer.)

Ah, I didn't know ^^. And yeah I spotted a resemblance between matsuri and Yuuko, at least ^___^. Thanks for the infos.

That "little girl" is a year older than the main character - she's just short and high pitched. Entirely different from the voice the actress used for Mayuko in Sola.

^^"""" I didn't know that. On a side note, i LOVE Mayuko (her story is really sad) I even did some drawings of her :3

That's actually an issue in itself, since I don't remember seeing any signs she noticed the similarities between Yorito's past and present forms. Then again, I wasn't actually looking.

IIRC, she knows since the start who he is (and that he is not the true Yorito).

The main issue I had was just that it seems to me that she HAS to have lived through some times of major social turmoil - particularly as some of the landmarks in Sola bare a resemblance to Nagasaki.

Well, my main issue was that since she never saw the blue sky, I wonder if she was a Yaka from the start XD

I just tried rewatching the bit in episode 9 where she meets Renji again, and it does seem like she can recall some things from before 13 hours ago with the diary's help, but it's not clear how much - I think the writers probably left this vague on purpose.

I don't really remember that part of the first season, but it was implied that she can remember some things, no ?

(Rewatching bits of season 1 has been very interesting, just because I'm now paying much more attention to the subtlies in characters actions. Yu warning Renji about what he's in for if he gets close to Chihiro was particularly notable because of the parallels with the warning Akari gave him.)

TBH, many people (most?) preferred the first season, but me I really liked the second season of Ef. I should rewatch the first season when I will find the time though (Ef was a very good series ^^)

I don't think I'll ever get a chance to play the game (it's Japanese only, for one), so I'm actually really interested in the changes.

Sorry for the late reply BTW, I had to go to bed early yesterday, because of school.

Well, in the game, Yuuko is pregnant when she dies (I guess they did it when they stopped by that Temple). And she is hit by a car because of Miki who ran to her when she saw Yuuko. Yuuko saves her, and then dies. I think there are other changes, but those were the most important, I think ^^